


may i drink?

by morresend



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon has been taken out back and shot, First Kiss, M/M, bilingual seduction, dear german speaking people i am sorry, i just love me some angsty boys in tremulous love, percy has hand tremors and you can't pry that off me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-19 06:04:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19969246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morresend/pseuds/morresend
Summary: wine, sunsets, and something to satiate. percy finds a special way to communicate how he needs.





	may i drink?

**Author's Note:**

> rarepairs. why not?

"The sunset is rather beautiful tonight," Percy says, half to himself and half to Caleb. He listens to the clink of glass against glass (a commonplace sound, but so satisfying he can't help but catch it) as he pours crimson wine into his glass, watching how the liquid moves and forms to its receptacle. 

He tells the truth. The sun casts out beams of warm, nostalgic orange and hues of sleepy yellow as it slowly dies, falling behind the horizon. It falls through the open window-wall of Percy's room, turning the walls into a three-dimensional canvas of old, dying light. 

Caleb sits on the floor, one leg outstretched and the other crossed underneath it, his hands placed on the floor just behind him. Silent as ever, backlit by the horizon; a painter offering life her paints, her colours to enrich the world. 

Percy can write stanza upon stanza of poetry, but none can quite describe the melancholy, tired beauty that Caleb exudes. 

The wine in Percy's glass trembles in tandem with his hand. His grip could not be firmer, surer - it is only the stalk of a cup, and not something that is living and breathing. He can, hold inanimate objects so much easier. Eyes never leaving the mess of flawless imperfection ten feet in front of him, Percy raises his glass to his lips. He silently toasts to a thousand words he wishes he could say, and drinks. 

It's strong and feels like a red dagger sliding down his throat. It's how he prefers it. 

"Ja," Caleb replies, followed by a heavy sigh that carries the weight of an ocean. The sound drags at Percy's heartstrings, tearing him wide open at the chest and leaving him vulnerable in infatuation. Affection makes him weak and exposes a heart that beats dark blood but - but - he could let Caleb see. Could let long, clever spellcaster fingers submerse that ruddy thing in him and make it brighter than their sunset. 

There would be a lot of blood. 

"It is like a painting." Caleb observes, almost tiredly. Percy hangs onto his words, and he is starved for them, the monotonous lilt of his accent; the dull, dulcet tone of a quieter voice; the intimacy Percy gleans from five words. 

Percy cannot paint pictures, but he will paint letter after letter until it is an ode to Caleb Widogast and all his glittering shadows. 

The writer inside him begs to be set free and spill ink of worship. 

"I think you're right. May I sit?" Percy approaches his friend - his companion - his  _ what? _ \- with steps that keep him concentrated and level. He stands next to Caleb, who is still sitting there, blue eyes still fixated on the sunset. 

"Of course." he says politely, and Percy wishes he would beg for it instead. Beg for his presence. Turn to face him and take his hand in his and plead for closeness. 

But Caleb continues to look at the horizon, and Percy sits down on the finely varnished floorboards, setting his wineglass down on the floor beside him. This is normal. 

This is  _ ab _ normal - extraordinary, a twining of two terribly ruined people who cannot tell left from right, love from hate. 

Percy wants to hold Caleb's hand and feel his pain, like he feels his own every waking second. He wants to know Caleb. 

He can see Caleb's eyelashes in perfect detail, from the way the light threads through them. Ginger, like his hair. Soft and long and naturally curled. Percy wants to choke on the intimacy of the sight, of the beauty of a simple body part. 

Caleb notices him looking. Their eyes meet. 

"Percy," says Caleb, and it is an acknowledgement of every strange and tricky and raw emotion he has felt for Percy, every bridge they have created and not yet dared to cross. 

There is so much in the vocalisation of a name. So much to let go of, so many stories to tell. 

"Caleb." 

Percy tries it on his tongue, and it feels like tea too hot to drink, tastes like some exotic fruit that grows continents away from here. 

The anxiety in his stomach is venom-sharp and he can feel it in his throat, too. He wants, he needs, he yearns for more of Caleb. The softer side, the vulnerability cloaked in sunbeams. 

Percy thinks about something he's learned. He learns to kill. Teaches himself something that can help to end something. 

A few words in Zemnian to end an ache, temporarily. If he does not say it, a void of dissatisfaction will take him. And, oh, Caleb looks so pretty. 

" _ Ich denke über _ -" the pronunciation goes to shit on the third word. Percy will not make this mistake again, not on such a monumental pairing of phrases he's spilling. . He swears on the way Caleb turns to him again with a surprised expression, " _ deine Lippen _ ." 

That's better. 

"'I think about your … lips' ," Caleb echoes. His voice trembles like Percy's hands. 

" _ Ich bin… durstig."  _ Percy continues, and he has been over those words so many times ( _ I am thirsty _ , when he thinks about Caleb,  _ I am thirsty _ , when he touches himself,  _ I am thirsty _ , when he has not drank for a day and still does not think of water) that they are still full of emotion in another language.

Caleb's tongue darts out to wet his lips. 

Percy is  _ parched _ . 

" _ Darf ich trinken _ ?" 

Caleb just looks into him, and there is no awkwardness, no anxiety about the eye contact they hold. Only a chasm they peer over at each other. 

_ May I drink?,  _ he asks, requesting salvation from an oasis in the middle of a desert. 

" _ Trinken Sie _ ." Caleb whispers, eyes low, words trembling, full and broken. 

_ Drink _ . 

So he does. 

And when Percy does, when he leans forward and finds Caleb's lips, he attempts to search for the correct word that can decipher this feeling. 

He fails, and thinks of nothing instead. 

Caleb runs his tongue along Percy's lower lip, and Percy's hand curls around Caleb's wrist, and Caleb tilts his head and the kiss grows deeper. 

There is a blankness as he is enraptured by the touch of Caleb's lips against his. 

They part; and five seconds of absolute silence permeate all of Percy's self before they close the distance again. Caleb's hands do not always shake (not like Percy's do, anyway), but he can feel the tremble when he rests them on Percy's cheek. Nevertheless, they are grounding. 

Percy is drinking saltwater. It may satisfy him, but all it does is make him all the more desperate for greater volumes. More and more, until it chokes him. 

This is a predicament he is willing to accept. After all, Caleb will always look beautiful in the sunset. 


End file.
